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Avildsen shot hours of tournament footage from multiple angles

Chronology

Decades after their 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament bout, a middle-aged Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence find themselves martial-arts rivals again.. During the original Karate Kid shoot, late director John G. The crew behind Cobra Kai searched the studio vault and found a ton of never-before-seen clips, which they were able to introduce into the series via flashbacks.

Ralph Macchio told Uproxx there are three brand new angles of the famous crane kick

One of them includes Zabka's real life mom, who was in the stands in different angles that went unseen until 2018. Many people believe that Miyagi's name on his headstone is a continuity error, given that in Karate Kid 4 (1994) his name is stated to be Keisuke, but it was actually shown previously on a sign being held for him by Chozen in Karate Kid 2 (1986) to be Nariyoshi. This means that it was The Next Karate Kid that changed his name, while Cobra Kai kept the name previously given for him.Another interesting fact, however, is that the name given in The Karate Kid Part II was not the original first name given to Miyagi.

There are many things to like about this series

In Karate Kid (1984), it can briefly be seen on Miyagi's dog tags, attached to the keys of the 1948 Ford given to Daniel for his birthday, that Miyagi's first name is Hideo.. Featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Anthony Mackie/Ralph Macchio/Kiry Shabazz (2018). Probably the best thing for me is its rejection of political correctness and victimhood culture.

The reaction of Johnny Lawrence is priceless

Actually, rejection is a strong word and this isn't a protest piece by any means but there is definitely a theme of taking responsibility for one's own fate and confronting adversity with resilience and even some agression. (The show is intelligent enough to portray overt agression or anger as counterproductive). There is one great scene during a karate tournament where a competitor starts pretentiously virtue signalling to the crowd.

Hopefully Hollywood takes note that virtue signalling is not a prerequisite for great entertainment

It's great to see a show that is intelligent with messages to tell but doesn't take itself too seriously.